


And wandering all serene

by Katarik



Category: DC Comics
Genre: Alternate Universe, Bechdel Test Pass, Gen, POV Female Character, Present Tense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-21
Updated: 2011-03-21
Packaged: 2017-10-17 04:46:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/173044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katarik/pseuds/Katarik
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adeline has always wanted to meet Wonder Woman. Now that she has corrected the mistake of Count Tavolera, perhaps now is the best time to attempt it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And wandering all serene

She isn't in pain. No matter what her mind wants to tell her. Adeline knows her own body, the limits of it. The bruises are old enough that they are almost invisible, and they don't hurt.

Her pride, though... that hurts. Her pride and her dignity, and she can hear her mother murmuring, quietly as she had always spoken, that it would have been better to have poisoned the man rather than turn her husband in and divorce him.

Poison would have been too easy, Mother, Adeline murmurs back.

Besides, she always had been better with hand-to-hand fights.

It's difficult to resist the urge to laugh. Her dear, dear husband hadn't made a fool of her. Adeline had made a fool of herself.

She will never go through this again. She will never feel this weak, this... this *stupid* again.

Part of her, remembering her father, wishes to go into the military. She has the potential, she knows. And she needs the discipline.

Tavolera had always -- no. No, she will not think of him. He was a liar and a traitor. There is nothing he taught her except that trust is a weapon like anything else, and that she made a mistake.

When she was a little girl, she had told her mother once, "When I grow up, I'm going to be Wonder Woman." The games she had played had involved golden rope and Nazis and her father, laughing, picking her up to spin her around and teach her the best way to demolish a circle of opponents.

That had changed to Black Canary eventually, but somewhere in Kane Manor there is probably still a child-sized version of Wonder Woman's uniform.

And... why not? She has the time and the resources. Wonder Woman hasn't been seen in a decade or so, but with everything the stories said she survived Adeline doubts that she is dead from the simple passage of years.

"I'm going to find Wonder Woman," she says aloud, and starts to laugh in the middle of the empty living room.

*

She has the resources to purchase a plane outright. She does not -- yet -- have the training to fly it.

She's *planning* to hire a pilot, but there's no reason not to have a second plan. Just in case.

Carol Ferris owes Cousin Raymond a small favor. It's easy enough to use that in exchange for flight lessons. It doesn't take too long to learn to work the plane. She isn't stellar, she won't be without a great deal more time, but she can handle herself if she must.

Just in case.

*

She's alive. The plane is destroyed, her pilot likely dead, but she herself had managed the shore. It's enough.

The women in front of her are wearing armor Adeline hasn't seen since she left home and its Grecian designs behind. The language they speak -- it sounds like a mix of classical Greek and something else she doesn't recognize. She hasn't studied her Greek in years, doesn't understand most what they're saying. "Kairete," she tries, and manages a careful "Eupharisto" when they hand her a leather bottle. The water is warm and welcome on her tongue.

She does not remember the Greek for "wonder," and it is no guarantee that these women would know the name Wonder Woman in any case. She had done enough research to know the woman's name, at least -- "Hippolyta," and cannot perfectly construct the sentence "Take me to Hippolyta." Her tutors would be scandalized.

She does not resist when they lead her instead to what she recognizes as a hospital. It makes sense. She was injured in the crash, they will want to test for dehydration.

There is also an armed guard. Adeline revises her estimation of this Hippolyta's importance, if the mere mention of her name by a stranger nets soldiers. Clearly there is more to her than simply having been Wonder Woman.

It takes, by her estimation, approximately half an hour before two more soldiers come to her room. She does not understand what they say, but the quick jerk of their heads and the impatience on their faces is easy enough. She rises, and goes with them.

*

The mistress of deportment herself would have been proud of this curtsey, despite Adeline's current attire. She was not loaned armor, which is sensible, but the rags of her clothing were not deemed proper. The peplos fits well enough, though her hair hangs loose. She is too aware of the difference between her and those about her, and curses the self-consciousness as a child's foolishness.

"Kaire," she says to the woman on the throne, and keeps her head high. She may, in fact, be a prisoner, but she was prisoner and worse to Tavolera and did not lose her pride. She is not beaten now, either.

"Hello," the woman says back, and English is enough of a relief that for a moment her knees weaken. If she can communicate, she can negotiate, and she can win if she can do that much.

"My name is Adeline Kane. I am looking for Wonder Woman, called Hippolyta. Is she here?"

The woman frowns as she stands. "I am Queen Hippolyta. Why do you seek Wonder Woman? Is there a need in Man's World so soon?"

There is always a need. That truth is not what Adeline tells her. "No, Your Majesty." Queen? It explains the soldiers, though she had not heard that Wonder Woman was royalty. It makes her wonder more about this island, that it sends its princesses to battle for nations it doesn't have treaties with. "The need is in me."

The Queen blinks, smiling in a fashion Adeline is more than familiar with. Boarding school, with more time among other women than she had ever spent before, and the things she had learned there. "Is it so? Tell me of this need, American sister."

"I request a boon, Your Majesty." She has been debating this since her plan began. Here at last, she knows what she would wish. "I plead that you would let me stay here with your -- " Soldiers. The word is *soldiers*, looking about her at the scars and bared weapons. " -- people. I could be useful." She hasn't had anyone who could teach her anything she wanted to learn in years. From Queen Hippolyta -- Wonder Woman, whose demeanor even her mother had praised and whose daring made her childish self dream -- there is little she would not learn.

"Never have the Amazons turned away a sister in need. How old are you, and have you a name?"

She lets her relief, her pleasure, show. There's no sense hiding her reactions to being granted the favor she had begged. "I am twenty, Your Majesty. My name is Adeline Kane." Not Tavolera, not Morel. She is a child again in this court.

"Kane would be your father's name, is it not so? You will not use it here." Her face is stern. "This is Themyscira, and you are known only for what you are. Nothing of your father, or even of your mother, will you use. You are only yourself, sister Adeline."

There is a purity there. It is something new, she has never been other than a Kane of the Kanes, but it cuts clean and takes nothing she was not willing to lose. "Yes."

There is no cheer. There is only a salute, weapons raised and flashing in the light, as Queen Hippolyta smiles.


End file.
